Pleurisy

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  • indygunguy

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    I have pleurisy. It hurts like hell. It's an inflammation in the lining of the lungs. In my case, the pain is localized to a spot on the right side of my back about the size of my fist. It's very hard to take full breaths, and it feels like I'm being stabbed in the back with a knife every time my lungs get about 50% full. Oh boy, it sucks.

    Doc put me on a mega dose of anti-inflammatories, and they are helping A TON. Inflammation is down, pain is down, I just have to rest now. Back to a kind of normal life with a bearable amount of pain at this point.

    WHY AM I TELLING YOU THIS? - Because there is good news. If you find yourself in a huge amount of pain out of the blue, don't automatically panic. You may not be having a heart attack, you may not have burst your appendix/gallbladder/whatever, it may "just" be pleurisy, which is treatable with anti-infammatories and rest. And the sooner you talk to your Doc, the sooner you will get back to normal life and feel better.

    That is all, carry on.

    :ingo:
     

    Kaneda13

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    I "feel your pain", I had pleurisy about 15 years ago. Unfortunately mine was located in the center of my chest, and put a lot of pressure on my heart. My girlfriend (later wife, later later ex-wife) thought for sure I was having a heart attack. I was on prednisone for a while, and had to wear a mobile EKG for a few days until the swelling went down. Definitely kick back, relax, and take it easy until your back to 100%.
     

    Mr Evilwrench

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    I've had that numerous times. For a while I think it was latent with me like cold sores or something, stress would bring it out. The first time I had it, I learned it was a mistake to use the word chest and the word pain in the same sentence in a medical facility. It's been a while since I had it, and I don't miss it.
     

    NKBJ

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    I felt your pain but knock on wood, not now.
    There's one spot to the right of the left nipple that just acts up sometimes.
    Semi funny story...
    I'd cleared a thicket with a double bit axe and stacked the burn pile about twenty years ago and started getting this pain in my chest.
    When I told the doctor about it she just looked at me kinda said "you got a pain, and how old are you"?
    That was my duh moment heads up on the realty of aging.
     

    Alamo

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    From your description, I'm thinking I'm glad it was my gall bladder. Once that was diagnosed properly, a quick operation and the little bastard hasn't bothered me since.


    Good luck with your treatment!
     

    JeepHammer

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    It's also an issue when you badly break ribs or collar bone, and the chest wall gets punched through inside towards the lung.
    Blood gets in between lung & chest wall and the lug sticks to the chest wall.
    It literally feels like you are being torn apart every time you try to breathe.

    I badly broke a collar bone, shoulder blade in the military, the doctor put me on oxygen so I didn't have to breathe deep, but that actually dried the lung out worse, and gave me strong pain killers, which made me sleep deeply, but I got slid down in the bed and couldn't sit up or roll over...
    And couldn't yell for help, felt like I was suffocating & being ripped apart at the same time.
    REALLY bad feeling.

    Hydrate, anti-inflammatory, pain killers but not the super high powered kind so you pass out and get into my situation...

    I took a bullet in the right lung, cut about 1/4 of the way around on the right side to fix the lung, a chest tube when I work up, and all those muscles cut through, and the rib spreaders didn't hurt like pleurisy did (better care in post-op & better pain killers, chest tube sucks blood out).

    This sounds counter productive, but they told me if you lay on the effected side the surfactant (lubricant) pools from gravity.
    I personally couldn't tell a difference, but that's what they told me.
     

    K_W

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    I've been getting random stabbing chest pains when trying to breath since I was a kid, but they'd last only moments and may be months apart... never mentioned it to a Doc.
     

    indygunguy

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    This sounds counter productive, but they told me if you lay on the effected side the surfactant (lubricant) pools from gravity.
    I personally couldn't tell a difference, but that's what they told me.

    Good tip, and worth a try.

    And holy cow, THANK YOU for your service in the military. Honestly, thank you very much. Both of those recoveries sound awful.
     

    Ziggidy

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    It's important to try to take deep breaths intermittently, slowly as to minimize pain. Failure to take deep breaths can cause what they call atelectasis (closing of tiny air sacs in the lung); which can lead to other complications including pneumonia.
     
    Last edited:

    indygunguy

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    Just another note or two...

    After 10+ days I still get "attacks" and those hurt a lot. Interesting to note that these "attacks" ALWAYS happen after I've been laying down. If I'm at the office all day sitting upright, or walking a lot, or whatever, I'm fine. It's when I've been laying down asleep at night, or when I try to nap that the attacks come on. So last night I made myself a ramp to sleep on made up of pillows so that my head was probably 2 feet higher than my waist. Slept great and woke up with zero pleurisy pain this morning. No idea why, but so far this seems to work.

    Doc put me on a steroid starting this morning (I resisted this at first because I'm stupid and stubborn... so she had me on hi dose of ibuprofen until now.) So, steroids it is for 9 days. This should knock it out.

    Again, just documenting this here in case it helps someone in the future.

    :ingo:
     

    DeadeyeChrista'sdad

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    Old Pops has it intermittently. It does not look fun.
    On a slightly funnier note he lays on a pillow covered with a heating pad , on the sofa when it flares up any at all.
    Wasn't answering his phone yesterday, and in the back of my mind I always fear the worst when this happens.
    When we got there, though, he was fine.
    After a few minutes he asked me to call him so he could find his phone. LOL
    AAAAND the sofa began to ring.
    All the way down the back, of course.
     

    JeepHammer

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    Underlying auto-immune issue the steroids should help.
    The problem I have with steroids is eating.
    I crave sweets & grease 24/7, I swear I can hear the Krispy Kreems hit the grease at 4AM, 70 miles away! ;)

    Good tip, and worth a try.

    And holy cow, THANK YOU for your service in the military. Honestly, thank you very much. Both of those recoveries sound awful.

    Life is a journey, briars, ditches, poison ivy along the way.

    I was absolutely convinced I was having a heart attack, brutal chest pains.
    My wife called the local doctor that lives 4 minutes away, he's an old time time military/combat doctor.
    He called an ambulance, mixed melanta & lidocaine and had me drink it.
    In less than a minute the pain was gone.

    Thats the old time test to see if it's a hernia or gall bladder or heart attack.
    I have gall stones, and apparently they didn't like being ignored...
    Damned rocks!
     

    indygunguy

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    Underlying auto-immune issue the steroids should help.

    I think this prednisone is supposed to directly fight the inflammation too. We’ll see. Took two with breakfast and one with lunch as directed. 8:00p and Just got back from about a half mile walk with wife and dogs... and now I’m hurting. So tired of this.
     

    NKBJ

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    Underlying auto-immune issue the steroids should help.
    The problem I have with steroids is eating.
    I crave sweets & grease 24/7, I swear I can hear the Krispy Kreems hit the grease at 4AM, 70 miles away! ;)



    Life is a journey, briars, ditches, poison ivy along the way.

    I was absolutely convinced I was having a heart attack, brutal chest pains.
    My wife called the local doctor that lives 4 minutes away, he's an old time time military/combat doctor.
    He called an ambulance, mixed melanta & lidocaine and had me drink it.
    In less than a minute the pain was gone.

    Thats the old time test to see if it's a hernia or gall bladder or heart attack.
    I have gall stones, and apparently they didn't like being ignored...
    Damned rocks!

    Oh gosh yes. Once upon a time I was the blue light special, crash cart, whole nine yards at the emergency room, signing my last paycheck and handing it to my wife while I still could, should have had Eric Idle starring in a white coat...

    Had a pinched nerve and a silly grin.
     

    JeepHammer

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    Every time I read 'Cancer' I have to think about my mom & dad.

    Colonoscopy saved me from some bad things, probably saved my life, colon cancer is 100% curable when they find it as polyps...
    Dad had issues, so at 40 I went for a colonoscopy that most probably saved my life.
    One day out of my life, done as an out patient.
    Done again at 51, more polyps removed, half day out of my life that time, up & walking out by 1:00 PM.

    By the time you have symptoms, you are normally dead already and just don't know it.

    Dad's prostrate cancer nearly killed him, which prompted me to get a colonoscopy,
    But in the end it was non-small cell lung cancer that got him.

    My mom complained about 'Indigestion' over an extended period of time that turned out to be pancreatic cancer.
    By the time she actually got around to seeing a specialist, nothing anyone could do...
    She was 'Too Busy' to get to an internal medicine doctor after about 6-8 months of 'Indigestion'.

    Keep in mind, if you are off a certain age, we are time bombs.
    We got hosed down with chemicals, ate chemicals that are considered war crimes to produce now and have been off the market for decades.
    We weren't the 'Health Food' generation, we were the sugar & cigarettes generation.
    It's even worse if you were working in a shop or farm, from asbestos to PCBs, solvents, cleaners, pesticides & herbicides including Dioxin (agent orange fame), lead, cadmium, arsenic were in a bunch of that stuff.

    During the war on polio/mosquitos, they hosed kids down in city park, drive in theaters with DDT and cocktails of other chemicals that are now banned because they caused cancer, and they are presistent, once in, never out...
     
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